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Saturday Night Celebrations

Posted: November 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Festivities | Tags: |20 Comments

Let’s celebrate some of the big wins!!

The first openly gay minority will be representing California in Congress.

Mark Takano has made history by winning his election in California’s new 41st Congressional District. The Democrat beat Republican challenger John Tavaglione and will become the first openly gay person of color ever to serve in Congress. He will also be the first out person to represent the Golden State on the federal level.

A record number of women will be serving in the US Senate including Tammy Baldwin who will be the first openly lesbian senator.  We also welcome the first Asian American woman to serve in the Senate.

Tuesday’s election saw women take a record number of seats in the U.S. Senate. One-fifth of the legislative body no longer belongs to the good old boys.

Five new women were elected to the Senate, raising the number of female lawmakers in the chamber from 17 to 20. Democrat Elizabeth Warren will become the first female senator in Massachusetts history after she defeated incumbent Republican Scott Brown. Republican Deb Fischer emerged victorious over Democrat Bob Kerrey and will be the first full-term female senator from Nebraska.

Democrat Heidi Heitkamp, North Dakota’s attorney general, won a Senate seat in her state, while Hawaii Democrat Mazie Hirono became the first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate. Tammy Baldwin will become the first openly gay U.S. senator after shebeat former Gov. Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin.

Democrat Claire McCaskill bested Todd “legitimate rape” Akin to maintain her Missouri Senate seat.

Planned Parenthood candidates won.

The Sunlight Foundation found that Planned Parenthood’s advocacy arm and super-PAC spent about $5 million and $7 million, respectively, to oppose Republicans and support Democrats in the general election.

In the end, the two groups saw returns on investment of about 98 and 99 percent, according to Sunlight.
The figures come as election-watchers pick apart the most expensive cycle in history. Republicans’ loss in the presidential race and failure to claim the Senate came as a surprise to outside donors, many of whom spent millions to ensure GOP victories.

Planned Parenthood’s political wing played an outsized role in the general election, compared to cycles past. The flood of political activity came as Republicans vowed to end Planned Parenthood’s federal funding as a healthcare provider for low-income women. Conservatives argue that while the law technically bans public funds from supporting abortions, taxpayer money need not flow to a group that performs the procedures.

The election covered a wide range of women’s health issues in addition to public funds for Planned Parenthood, giving the group ample chance to advocate in favor of abortion rights and access to free birth control.

Marriage Equality had an outstanding day.  The demographics show that this will be the law of the land shortly.

Three times over, voters made history on Election Day, endorsing moves to allow gay marriage in Maine, Maryland and Washington state.

At the same time, Minnesota voters rejected a ballot measure that would have enshrined an anti-gay marriage law in their constitution, and neighboring Wisconsin elected Tammy Baldwin as the country’s first openly gay U.S. senator.

Gay rights supporters are marking 2012 as a turning point in their quest for marriage equality. Opponents, meanwhile, deny a cultural shift in American attitudes is afoot, and alternatively decry changing definitions of marriage and family.

“This is a real sea change moment,” said Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, whose 2003 consecration as the church’s first openly gay bishop set off a firestorm. “This is a real national moment. It shows that America is ready for the mainstreaming of gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”

This is really a time for celebration.  It showed that campaigns run on race baiting, police state tactics against ethnic minorities, misogyny and homophobia do not sit well with the majority of the American people.  It also shows that the American people once again rejected the policies of the Republicans.  No amount of repackaging is going to put their coalition in a majority position again.  Voter repression tactics didn’t work.   People showed up early and stood in line.  Huge amounts of SUPER PAC money didn’t work either.    The people spoke.  Let’s continue to drive these haters into obscurity.

Party On Sky Dancers!!!


What was the best of the November 2012 Election for you?

20 Comments on “Saturday Night Celebrations”

  1. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    November 10, 2012 at 10:15 pm

    As part of the overall win, this is a good one. Rmoney got 78% of the Mormon vote, less than the 80% Bush got in 2004/

  2. pdgrey's avatar pdgrey says:
    November 10, 2012 at 10:21 pm

    I would have to say, the Florida people standing in the lines and determined to vote, I was grateful we were not the swing state Obama needed because that was a fuck-up waiting to happen. 🙂 We also got rid of Allen West!!!!!!!!

  3. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    November 10, 2012 at 11:06 pm

    DennisG has a post at balloon-juice that I really hope proves to be correct.

    There are a lot of lessons one could take from the 2012 Election. One fills me with hope: the neo-Confederate ideology that has run the Republican Party since Nixon embraced the Southern Strategy is dead. It is still quite dangerous (as any viewer of any zombie movie knows full well), but it is dead. In time, it has been done in by math, demographics and reality.

    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/11/10/good-2/

  4. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    November 10, 2012 at 11:41 pm

    Gary Wills deconstructs Rmoney as only he really can. Mittenfreude on steroids!

    NYR Blog: What Romney Lost

    Barry Goldwater, after his massive defeat, stayed true enough to his principled conservatism that the modern Republican Party was a beneficiary of his legacy—a beneficiary but not the determiner of that legacy. It was Goldwater himself who told the heir to his influence, Richard Nixon, that it was time to cleanse the White House by leaving it. Though Goldwater was a factor in the Southern strategy of Nixon, he was no racist, and no fanatic of any stripe. He was an acidulous critic of the religious right and a strong advocate for women’s rights (like abortion). He had backbone.

    What vestige of a backbone is Romney left with? Things he was once proud of —health-care guarantees, opposition to noxious emissions, support of gay rights and women’s rights, he had the shamelessness to treat as matters of shame all through his years-long crawl to the Republican nomination.
    […]
    McGovern and Dole were war heroes. They asked what they could do for their country. Romney, who avoided military service as a missionary, said none of his sons of military age could serve because they were serving the nation by helping him, year after year, run for president. Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for your family.

    Many losing candidates became elder statesmen of their parties. What lessons will Romney have to teach his party? The art of crawling uselessly? How to contemn 47 percent of Americans less privileged and beautiful than his family? How to repudiate the past while damaging the future? It is said that he will write a book. Really? Does he want to relive a five-year-long experience of degradation? What can be worse than to sell your soul and find it not valuable enough to get anything for it? His friends can only hope he is too morally obtuse to realize that crushing truth. Losing elections is one thing. But the greater loss, the real loss, is the loss of honor.

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      November 11, 2012 at 7:32 am

      I love Garry Wills. Can you believe I read his “Nixon Agonistes” twice? Thanks for that link!

  5. minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    November 10, 2012 at 11:45 pm

    OT: Just saw on twitter that there has been a huge explosion in Indianapolis: Explosion levels home, damages others in Indianapolis – chicagotribune.com

    Hope everyone is safe…

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